School of Psychology

I am developing and supporting the use of learning technology in the School of Psychology, as well as providing computer programming support for teaching and student projects.  I aim to explore how we can make better use of the systems already in place, such as the KLE, and I am also actively developing new ways of enhancing learning using other  technologies.  I am currently exploring how we can use social media such as Twitter and Facebook as ways to support teaching and communication, and also to provide the means to enable participation in data gathering activities. My general background is Psychology and Human-Computer Interaction, and my research interests centre on how people interact with technology.  I have worked in the academic sector for 10 years as a researcher and developer on a number of projects related to learning and communication, at the University of Nottingham and University of Birmingham.   I have recently submitted my Phd which explored the use of mobile technologies to support outdoor learning games for school children, and in 2004 I co-authored a review of the use of mobile technologies for learning commissioned by NESTA FutureLab.

As part of my role as Learning Technology Officer I am involved in research activities exploring how technology can be used to enhance learning and teaching. My personal interests range broadly across elearning, human-computer interaction, psychology, and the media. I am particularly interested in how we can use mobile technologies and social media to build bridges between learning in the 'classroom' and everyday activities.

Previous research projects include:

PaSAT (Participatory Simulation Authoring Toolkit): a software toolkit I developed as part of my PhD to explore how interactive location-based games can support outdoor enquiry learning activities

CASAM (Computer Aided Semantic Annotation of Multimedia): at the University of Birmingham I worked on this project exploring how we can build next generation systems to support real-time video annotation

CAGE (Context Aware Gallery Exploration): a project exploring the use of handheld devices to support visitors to Nottingham Castle Gallery and provide context-aware learning content

MOBIlearn: EU project exploring new ways to learn with mobile devices.

Selected recent publications

• Vavoula, G., Sharples, M., Rudman, P., Meek, J., and Lonsdale, P. (2009). Myartspace: Design and evaluation of support for learning with multimedia phones between classrooms and museums: Computers & Education 53: 286-299.
• Rudman, P., Sharples, M., Lonsdale, P., Vavoula, G., and Meek, J. (2008). Cross-Context Learning. Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience. L. Tallon and K. Walker (Eds.). Lanham, MD, AltaMira Press: 147-166.
• Vavoula, G., Sharples, M., Lonsdale, P., Rudman, P., and Meek, J. (2007). "Learning bridges: a role for mobile technologies in education." Educational Technology(May-June 2007), 33-37.
• Sharples, M., Lonsdale, P., Meek, J., Rudman, P., and Vavoula, G. (2007). An evaluation of myartspace. Proceedings of 6th Annual Conference on Mobile Learning, mlearn 2007.
• Lonsdale, P., Sharples, M., and O'Malley, C. (2007). Exploring physical, mobile learning for school children. Proceedings of ALT-C 2007. Nottingham.
• Naismith, L., Lonsdale, P., Vavoula, G., and Sharples, M. (2004). Mobile Technologies and Learning. (report commissioned by NESTA FutureLab), NESTA FutureLab.